Constellation
by Stupidityinavessel
Summary: This is an old fic that I realised I've never actually published! So, here you go


...

A cut is thin and raw. Induces blood, trickling down your skin. Cold, hard, and taunting. You feel your heart beat, you hear your ragged breathing, you feel it leaking out of your veins in a slow, steady stream. Wet against your cheeks. Blood trickles down your lip and mixes in with your tears.  
Is it a punishment? Maybe. But when your cuts heal, scars are left behind. Scars that never truly go away. Mere lines, penciled in with the bluntest kind of led, yet they never truly fade.

He was 24. It had been a decade. Time had flowed away, slithered far out of his grip, through the ground that seemed to grow farther and farther away with every passing year. Through his joints which protested when he bent too far down. Youth and limberness had escaped from his body, and with it went the flame of life flickering in his eyes as a child. Now his actions were measured, and his lifestyle was all too routine. Monotone, colourless, boring. He was not one to dream. But he also wasn't one to keep a straight face and his head down, leading a miserable life behind a screen. This left him in a dilemma, a haze of existential crisis and losing his way in the maze of life. Hedges so tall, fog so thick that it blocked his path. So he navigated the puzzle aimlessly, unable to see the hedges, unable to see the corners. Maybe he'd perform today, maybe he'd try to write music. But with everything new he tried, the opportunities crumbled before his very eyes, and it always ended with him tumbling into the hedges of that awful maze. Twigs that clawed at his face and drew blood furiously, then sent it streaking down his cheeks, bloodstains etched in with a formidable pencil of failure. Until he couldn't really tell if it was blood or tears.

It was April 4th, spring was here. He mounted the old rusty bike, parked behind the auditorium. Evening had fallen. The sun had retreated behind the mountain ridges, and left behind traces of twilight, tinting the corners of the sky soft shades of lavender and blue. The horizon fluoresced with iridescent evening light, and the ghostly glow of the rising moon cast out an ombre of fantastic colours, dancing within the clouds. But nothing seemed bright in his eyes. Light was dim, and colours were faded. Even the spotlights up onstage, once so intimidating, now came to him as a mere ritual of everyday life. Because cuts leave scars. Cuts from those horrible hedges. In that horrible maze. When he pressed down on the bike pedals, and cycled out into the night, there was nothing on his mind. When the moon rose over the mountain range, he never noticed. When chilling hues of white and luminescent light flooded the sky, he couldn't care less. Clouded by the fog again. Always.

Maybe it was because everything of his thoughts and imagination had merged together long ago, and formed into a monster so bent on hatred and destruction that he'd buried it away. Where it'd regressed into a blur and he'd shelved it and never taken a glance at it again.  
"Too complicated, too unnecessary", he'd deemed it. Maybe because he'd never noticed it haul itself out of the pit of forgotten memories, creep its way back into his conscience, and seep into the crevices of his mind. Maybe he'd never noticed it melt into his vision, and sheen his eyes with a layer of haze. Maybe he'd never noticed it dissolve into the pathways of that maze and wisp away into the air, as the burdening fog perpetually in his way of progress. The contamination of clarity. Because his demons had never truly died, they'd just been forgotten.

Now, moonlight cast silhouettes on the mountain path, lined with rocks and gravel. A trail which met with the edges of the firmament, a fine string of light between the land and the sky. And when he tilted his head up, it was not an empty void of darkness, bleak and hopeless that he saw. Because a web of stars had been spun in the sky, sprinkled across the firmament like little white specks of salt. Little sparkling orbs against a blanket of night, a mirage of purples and blues and greys, swirled together into a deep chasm of galactic wonder. But why should he have to care? It was only temporary. And it didn't matter all that much to him. That's what he told himself over and over, yet the stars connected and spiralled into blurred images of oceanic blue eyes and gentle soft lips. Winking in the distance, smiling at him from afar. No! He forced his eyes shut, squeezed the handles of his bike so tight, he could almost feel the rubber grinding into his palms. No! From the corners of his mind, slithering into the centre, until it slipped out of his vision and wriggled free, cracking the chains wound tight by his conscience. The manifestation he'd created, driven by hostility. Roaring in full force, enough to drown out the sounds of gravel crunching under the weight of his bicycle. Yet the stars seemed to glow brighter still, and the moon illuminated the tears on his face, so that they glistened like tiny crystals embedded into his cheeks. There, in an instant. He saw that the fog in the maze was gone, only to reappear in a more aggressive form, with a vengeance, clawing his face bloody. But there the stars were, threaded together into the shape of a hand, with long, slender fingers. That reached down from the sky, swirling the breeze around its fingertips. Until it came into contact with his back. Hunched, pathetic. It drummed its fingers on his collarbone, and traced the ridges of his spine. So that when he turned around, it was no longer just a hand, but a person. With the same elegant proportions, luscious golden hair that trailed behind her like ribbons in the wind. But this girl was not 14. She did not sport a uniform. She did not carry a tackily decorated violin case. Her face no longer conveyed youth in a mere glance. This girl should have been 24. A decade had passed, a decade without her tinkling voice ringing in his ears. But here she was again, clutching his shirt, creasing his collar. Strands of hair brushing against the nape of his neck. So somewhere in that maze, a warrior struck his monster down with an arrow of hope, until it melted into a puddle on the floor and disintegrated into little fragments. He couldn't see it's downfall, but he could feel its rich tingling sensation bubbling in his chest. Hot, incandescent, thick with anger and calmness, and passion and apathy at the same time. The warrior who had slaughtered his monsters with no fear in her sparkling eyes so long ago, was back. Even those ruthless hedges of the maze parted to make way for her, as she lifted her bow and rejoiced. A warrior, but also a princess. Thorny bushes and forestry so wild it could gash his knees till they buckled and he lay in a crumpled heap, in a pool of his own blood. She could tame them in just one beautiful smile, and bloom flowers in the bushes with the touch of a finger. Then she would take his hand, heal his cuts, and clean off the blood. And erase away scars he had thought were indelible. And he almost didn't notice her wrap her arms around his torso. A sweet song that came to him in the breaths of wind. Her hot breath caressing his ears, embracing a voice so sweet it blended in with the descending cherry blossoms in the air. "Twinkle, Twinkle... Little... Star..."  
It had the same authenticity, rich with colour and passion, yet laced with sugar. A different pitch than before, for now her voice was tinged with a touch of maturity, a flower that had bloomed into a full, ripened fruit over the course of a decade. Those waves of sound, poised high over the crest of shore, before collapsing and crashing unto the beach, lapping against his feet. But from where he stood, where salt in the air stung his eyes, and the familiar ocean smells nauseated him to his core.  
He let his eyes swell with tears of their own, and travel down his cheeks. Salty, just like seawater. That song was so familiar, so delicate, pristine like the falling snow on that day, yet it was a chant, sung in a sort of monotony that brought his demons back to life. Something routine of that spring some years ago. But comfortable, assuring. A soft reminder that magic existed in the chemistry that intertwined their hearts, carved them into a flower so vibrant, exploding with the colours of their intimacy. And yet it always withered in the end. Beautiful girl, why do you heal me, then hurt me again? "Twinkle... Twinkle... Little... S-star..." And yet there he was again, the words escaped his lips in the swiftest of breaths. Bringing silence to a screeching halt. A knife that sliced through the air, broke a boundary of affection and crossed a line he couldn't bring himself to cross. His steps were measured, his body was tense, he spoke with a curtness that told people he was trapped within a jail of his past. But that song- that simple, somewhat arbitrary choice of song, breached barriers he'd grown too apathetic to breach. Her tender hands undid the chains impeding his happiness for so long, that dragged him back down into an abyss of despair when he reached his hand out to the light. "How I wonder what you are..."  
The sky was so pretty that night. The stars held hands and performed a dance, a kind of flawed perfection, flaunting and fleeting. The kind that glittered amidst the night, a precariously arranged structure of little white lights. Delicate as she was, as if it could be shattered with a single nudge. A constellation. That's right. What picture did it form? Her fingers pranced over his back, each ignited a flame. A shared fire, soulful heat that they both knew was mutual. Because her cheeks felt warm against his neck, and her arms were locked in embrace around his torso. So maybe it was the blur of heat from their fire, but the stars spelled their names that night. For once, his vision was not cloudy. The stars sparkled with unnatural clarity, he could see everything-light and darkness. He could feel everything, heat and chill. He could hear everything. "Up above the world so high..."  
Etched in a music score, the stars were a choir of little white notes. And the clouds parted to honour their song. "Like a diamond in the sky-ye..." And moonlight drizzled this panorama, and spilled across the sky. And when she opened her eyes, they were twinkling too. This was a sickness, maybe? A curse? But her cherry lips said otherwise, in the ways the corners of mouth curled, and a certain magic rippled the air Tinny, strong, fragile, confident. Her laughter built the fire, and her smile fuelled it on. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star..." His teats fell as shooting stars, and his collar caught them all. A net to catch fallen angels. To heal them and mend their wings, so they could fly again. Little white tears rose as little white stars, for a spirit of triumph had awakened from it's hopeless slumber. And the little angels whisked life into his lips, so a forgotten smile could grace them again. "How I wonder what you are..." He felt her touch begin to lift away, the pressure of her hands on his thighs alleviate, the fire in their hearts cry itself to its own demise. The magic vanished, he saw it cracking and crumbling into shards before his very eyes, for it was as brittle as the sugar in her voice, and he skidded and the brakes of his bicycle screeched like the voices in his head. Broken, like the rhythm of his heartbeat as he watched her dissipate into the chilly night air. She smiled once again, sweet as sugar, rich with the aura of passion she radiated. He felt her stroke his chin one last time, her fingers fragile yet elegant as they skimmed across his cheeks. "You're always looking down, Friend A. You should look up more. Then you would see what the world is really like." So when he closed his eyes, and the touch of her fingertips melted away, he kept his chin up, and a smile on his face. And the moonlight swept across the landscape, and illuminated his face in lustrous hues of white and gold. And the stars fluttered down from the sky and tugged at his fingertips, and the cherry blossoms still sang their song. So when he opened his eyes, she'd disappeared. The stars meandered and returned to their homeland of the night, impish little faeries that spread their wings and flew away in youthful succession. A little star in the centre of the sky, that shone brighter than the moon itself, suspended atop a throne of light in the heart of the heavens. Smiling down at him, a voice flitting along in the breeze. A breath, a whisper.  
"I love you, Arima Kousei." 


End file.
